Trump wags the dog as his empire wobbles
US president is at rock bottom, and conjuring up images of war is a strategy to revive his dwindling support
There it was: The president of the US announcing he was going to war, like a page ripped out of the Wag The Dog script. Except it wasn’t a new war. It was the old Afghanistan imbroglio. And he wasn’t going to war so much as ramping up the existing war. Apparently Donald Trump has stumbled on a brilliant strategy — this time the US will "fight to win". "We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists," he said on national television, according to Reuters. Apparently nation-building is a bad thing. Who knew? This from the script of Wag the Dog: Ames: "We can’t afford a war." Brean: "We aren’t going to have a war. We’re going to have the ‘appearance’" of a war." All this war talk has its origin in Trump’s dwindling, diminishing, perhaps even vanishing support, including in the conservative states where he triumphed in 2016 by promising, among other things, not to go to war in Afghanistan. That was then, this is now. Then he was popular and didn’t need a war. Now he’s at roc...
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